Search update

Yesterday (May 16th) Google unveiled Universal Search, which incorporates information from a variety of previously separate sources – videos, images, news, maps, books, and websites – into a single set of results. Over time, users will recognise additional types of content integrated into their search results as the company moves toward delivering “a truly comprehensive search experience”. According to Google;

The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query. While we still have a long way to go, today’s announcements are a big step in that direction.

The change means when users carry out a search, it will also be run on all the other categories of information that Google indexes. A series of tabs will appear between the search box and the results that let users navigate to other categories. Clicking on a tab will let people drill down into a specific category of results such as patents or products.

Searchmash’s integration of different categories on the results page has obviously proved popular enough with users to be adopted by Google’s main site.

Although search results will be enhanced, the act of searching remains unchanged and I think this is where Google needs to concentrate more of their efforts.